


We tried so hard to live in the truth

by saffrondawn



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-30
Updated: 2014-04-30
Packaged: 2018-01-21 10:19:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1547168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saffrondawn/pseuds/saffrondawn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he meets her for the first time, she’s sticking a Q-tip in his mouth to collect DNA and he mentions Christmas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We tried so hard to live in the truth

When he meets her for the first time, she’s sticking a Q-tip in his mouth to collect DNA and he mentions Christmas.

The code word.

A small look of recognition passes across her eyes before she returns to her table.

They haven’t met before, but they know each other. They will have to depend on each other during this mission.

***

“See you on the other side,” he tells her as she passes the rifle to him and watches as he runs away from her and Fitz. Mike Peterson is uncontrollable and Simmons is having a panic attack on whether or not the Night-Night rifle was calibrated correctly. But she has read Grant Ward’s file over and over again to the point where she has memorized it more than the rest of the team’s.

She knows his marksmanship skills, his traumatic history, and his kill count (Agent Garrett had bragged about that last point). When he puts Peterson down and a smile crosses his features, she knows why he’s on Coulson’s team. They get to live another day.

***

He watches them as Fitz scurries around the lab, and Simmons stays at her station. What he told Skye about wanting their villain to be a person was true, he could beat a person for compromising their mission. But this virus would ruin everything. If Simmons died, then his extraction would need to be adjusted. He would need both of their heads to successfully leave behind the ruse when Garrett called them with their orders.

Right before she knocks Fitz out, she taps on the pristine counter. He can’t understand why his brain isn’t processing her movements until he has already jumped out of the plane after her. The words he spoke not as a sign of foreboding, but of luck and optimism that they would get through their mission together.

See you on the other side.

***

She tries to keep him calm, but it’s not working. His blood pressure is rising, and he is just sitting. He mouthes off to her, Skye, and Fitz. She doesn’t appreciate what he says to Fitz since Ward didn’t follow her out of the plane for the purest intentions. She patches him up, he watches her back.

When she shuts the screen off, she quickly defends herself from a verbal attack. His demeanor changes from wrath to what could be calm for him. She reads it in surprise. Outwardly, he’s following doctor’s orders, but she was gotten to know him better. He was trusting her to make everything normal again. She will need him to complete their mission.

***

“I’m sleeping with May,” he informs her late one night.

She sets her tools down, and faces him. “How did that happen?”

“After the Berserker staff—”

“You don’t have to continue,” she interrupts.

Ward looks a little taken aback, “What do you mean?”

“It’s your personal life. I don’t need to do this.”

He moves closer to her, “We’re on the same team.” His face is close to hers, she doesn’t want Fitz to enter the lab and get the wrong impression, “We’re partners.”

“Yes, and that’s why we should only know as much as anyone else would know about each other in such close proximity.”

Ward steps back, nods, and leaves. Simmons lets out a deep breath before returning to her work, not entirely sure why a knot has grown inside her stomach.

***

They didn’t have a lot of alone time until Coulson was kidnapped, and Ward’s wounds need to be patched. Despite the overabundance of SHIELD agents on board, Simmons feels confident they can still carry on with a conversation about their mission, and no one would be the wiser.

She scolds him like she always does about his stitches, and proceeds to talk about what had transpired. Ward sits there, following her speech patterns, waiting for a hint of what’s really going on inside her mind.

“We find Centipede, we find Coulson,” he says.

She stops in her tracks and looks at him. To an outside observer, it’s normal talk about the parameters of SHIELD’s mission. To them—Ward and Simmons—it’s a reassurance. They hadn’t failed their mission yet. It was going to take a few more steps, but they were going to get there.

***

“We’ve been made.”

Simmons feels the world spin for a moment before Ward continued. His hand barely touches hers, and she knows that if they were truly made, then he wouldn’t be able to tell her.

She goes into her fixing mode by assessing his injuries, but he refuses. There’s something in his eyes that makes her think there’s a threat on the train to them as well.

“Don’t come out until I get you.”

She doesn’t see him for hours, and by the time they’re back on the Bus, she repeatedly checks Skye’s vitals, and she’s beyond exhausted. When she excuses herself, she needs to find a small corner where she can be herself—if she remembers who that is anymore. The tears start to come, and she doesn’t hate herself when she realizes that it isn’t for Skye. Despite knowing who the Clairvoyant was, she also knew who Garrett was. The Clairvoyant could be trusted, but not Garrett. He was a flip-flopper, and as the months passed, she was thankful Ward was different from him.

She hiccups, and finds Fitz’s arms around her. She wants to push him away, and tell him to look for someone who shares in his grief. She wants to run and find Ward and hug him or something. She needs to feel the same sense of relief coming from someone in her positions.

When she leaves Fitz and checks on Skye one more time, she ascends the stairs and heads to Ward’s bunk. Lightly, she knocks and enters when he opens the door. Immediately, she’s in his arms, and he’s holding her tight.

“Jemma,” he whispers.

“Too close,” she replies.

He lets her go a little because he can’t have anyone know she’s there, “Do you trust Garrett?”

“No. Do you?”

His lack of expression tells her everything. He trusts his mentor even if his partner doesn’t. “Do you trust me?”

“With my life. Do you trust me?”

He smiles before embracing her again, “With my life.”

***

“May ended things,” he says nonchalantly.

Simmons looks up from her neck stretch. Ward is standing there, trying with all his might to look like he isn’t disturbed.

“It’ll be easier in the end.”

He nods, “I know.”

“But that isn’t my worry.”

He sits down on a stool close to her workstation, “I know it isn’t, Jem- Simmons.”

“If you need to talk, you can. We’re in this together.”

She moves about more, and she feels his eyes on her. He’s not being critical or cataloging her movements (he did that ages ago), he’s watching for the sake of something to do.

“She knows about you.”

Simmons stopped, and turned to see regret etched on his face, “What does she know?”

“About you and me.”

“Grant,” she chokes out.

“That I have feelings for you.” He stands and walks over. He stops to ensure a station is between them, and when he reaches for her hand, he stops. Jemma knew something was wrong as soon as he was deemed suitable for duty. She wanted to travel to Asgard to beat the living crap out of Lorelei, and curse her for making her partner unreachable to her.

“What feelings?”

“That I would trust you with my life. That I know that you take your life and mine as priority over everyone else’s. That you have already thought of twenty different ways to make sure we get out of this alive. That I admire that you jumped out of a plane to ensure that the virus could be preserved. That your bravery and cunning are present every day, and I’m the only one who knows because out of everyone on this plane they don’t know you like I do, and they don’t know me like you do.”

She stands in silence, processing his words. “Those feelings.”

He chuckles, “Yeah, those.” He reaches for her again, and stops again. He slams his fist on the table, but she doesn’t jump. She doesn’t have to pretend that when she hears loud slams that she should jump.

She gives him a reassured smile, “I’ll be here.”

***

She packs a change of clothes, hoping she won’t need them. She counts the items in her backpack on her fingers. A soft knock comes at the end of her count. She calls to the person to enter.

Ward steps in and closes the door. He listens for any movement outside, just like every time he comes to her bunk in the recent weeks to talk. “The Hub.”

She turns to see him grinning before he pulls her into a tight hug. “We’re almost there,” he whispers in her ear.

She lets out a deep breath, “And we have succeeded.”

He lets her go a little to see her face. “You’re have to tell me why you joined then.”

At the time, she was sure the promise of telling him about herself—her true self—would be motivation to wake up in the morning without the crushing hatred he had grown accustomed to. Even when they would lay on her bed, facing each other, and whispering back and forth about different plans and methods of bomb making with household items, she could feel his negativity push through their bubble of partnership and reliance on one another. “You’re thinking I’m going to succeed,” she laughs.

“Of course you are. You’ve already convinced Tripp.”

She grimaces at the other agent’s name. Faking interest in him was difficult to endure. She found herself in the same room as him and Ward on too many times to count, and flirting with Tripp as the man who shared her bed (even if it was platonic and Ward never made an advance to touch her, and she followed the same rules expecting him to tell her when he was ready) was watching was disgusting. “He’s sweet, don’t get me wrong, but terribly naïve.”

He laughs, “And you don’t think Skye is?

“No, she is as well,” she pauses. “Do you know how you’re going to push her?”

“I’m going to propose a talk and drink. She wanted to talk to me after the Berserker staff, but I didn’t. And then the fling with May…”

“How much are you telling her?”

“A small fraction of what I told you.” He watches her expression, and she lets the bit of pride she’s feeling to come to the surface. “How are you with Tripp?”

“I’m thinking of batting my eyelashes and talking science to him,” she grabs her backpack and puts it on. She faces him again, and there is a grin on his face.

“Dirty science talk?”

“Only you could find science talk dirty and ask for questions of intellectual curiosity.”She takes a step toward him and wants to laugh at their terrible timing. Of course, the night before the outcome of their mission was to be set, their relationship had progressed to exchanging terrible pick-up lines to exchanging facts that shouldn’t be repeated in respectable company. She didn’t take it as anything other than when this was all over, she wants him in her life. She gently grabs his neck and pulls him toward her until they’re so close to kiss, but don’t. “If you need inspiration when you talk to Skye.”

He groans when she kisses his cheek, “We need to complete this mission.”

She looks at him seriously, completely agreeing with what he said, but wanting him to know more and understand it, “See you on the other side.”


End file.
